Skip to main content

New! You can personalise your feed. Try it now

Advertisement

Advertisement

Quan Yifeng Says She Was Escorted Out Of Mediacorp By Security Guards After Getting Fired For Fighting In A Bowling Alley In 1996

The host became the guest in the final episodes of Hear U Out 3, and shared the reason behind her fight with a bowling alley assistant in 1996, and how her career as a host was done for after that.

For the final two episodes of Hear U Out 3, it’s host Quan Yifeng’s turn in the hot seat, with longtime friend and host Guo Liang taking up the mantle as host and interviewer.

Yifeng, 48, joined showbiz at the tender age of 18 and has experienced a number of highs and lows throughout these 30 years, many of which have been widely publicised in the media.

The host readily admitted that she struggled a lot early on in her career, and even spoke more about why her infamous ‘bowling alley’ altercation happened.

For those not in the know, Yifeng was fined S$1,000 in 1996 after getting into a fight with a bowling alley assistant. As a result of the altercation, Yifeng was fired from Mediacorp, which was known as TCS then. She was only 22.

Guo Liang and Quan Yifeng.

Yifeng shared with Guo Liang that she was someone who was basically addled by love. She described herself as someone who had put everything on the back-burner the minute she got into a relationship.

“I left home at an early age, [and] I longed for love and to be protected. So when a guy treats me well, I fall head over heels for him,” Yifeng said, adding that she was “desperately hoping for love” back then.

Continuing on, Yifeng revealed that in her first relationship in Singapore, she became a third party unknowingly, and that caused her to “go crazy”.

She shared that before the bowling alley incident happened, she was already arguing with someone at that place.

As Guo Liang went on to explain, Yifeng was already “experiencing emotional ups-and-downs” then, which could have been why she acted the way she did.

Watch the first episode featuring Yifeng, where she reveals she originally came to Singapore to take English lessons so she could become a mamasan in Taiwan. Our story continues below.

She was basically all alone then.

Yifeng then spoke about the aftermath of the incident, revealing that she was escorted through then-TCS by security guards on her last day there after getting fired.

“I felt so ashamed, with a chill going down my back,” Yifeng said. She added that no one even dared to make eye contact with her at that point, much less offer any words of encouragement.

Yifeng would only make a resurgence four years later, in 2000, when she joined SPH MediaWorks.

During that period of unemployment, Yifeng, who was living in a rented room alone, admitted that she had no one to turn to. Previously, she’d lived with her great-aunt, former-actress-turned-insurance-agent Mary Chen.

However, she left Mary’s house as her aunt did not approve of her relationship, and she didn’t feel that she was "at home” then.

Yifeng showing how the facial palsy affected the left side of her face.

Speaking about the situation in her rented room immediately after the aftermath of her bowling alley fight, Yifeng shared: “I even used bath towels to block the windows, holding them in place with clips, [‘cos] reporters would attempt to take photos [without my permission]”.

The stress caused her to suffer facial palsy, leaving her unable to feel anything in the left side of her face.

“It was like I had a mini-stroke, [that part of my face] was rigid and tense,” she said.

At first, she didn’t quite understand just how badly she’d been affected by the incident.

“I was too young to understand that that was the death of my career, but I ended up not eating for over a week,” Yifeng added.

Then, when she finally ventured out of her room to get a piece of toast to eat, everything sunk in.

No toast for Yifeng, please.

“As I spread butter on the toast and bit into it, I thought to myself, ‘I'm done for’. My family in Taiwan still needed money for gas, or they wouldn’t have hot water in the winter. [And] I needed to pay for my younger brother’s school fees too. Then, I realised that everything was over,” she said.

“I have no money, why should I stay in Singapore any more? I lost my work permit, and I’ll have to leave. I took a bite, and started crying. I cried, and cried, and when I took another bite, I realised that the toast was salty [from my tears],” she continued.

The experience left such a big impact on Yifeng, that she still has a “phobia" of toast now.

“Up till today, no matter which country I go to, I will never, ever, eat another piece of toast,” she declared.

Photos: Quan Yifeng/Instagram, meWATCH

Watch the full episode of Hear U Out on meWATCH, or catch the second episode below

Related topics

Quan Yifeng Hear U Out

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.